Hatshepsut, Pharaoh of Egypt

Black Women In Sisterhood for Action (BISA) was founded on January 10, 1980, as a non-profit organization, whose purposes are to develop and promote alternative strategies for educational and career development of young black women beginning with the year they graduate from high school and continue for 2 to 4 years of undergraduate education; provide scholarship assistance to young black women; share information in meaningful ways with the community at-large; and to provide leadership, role models, and mentors for young black women.

For the past 30 years, BISA has been publishing annual calendars of distinguished black women, who serve as role models and mentors for BISA's scholarship recipients. It is through the support of BISA's philosophy, goals, and programs and the marketing of BISA's calendar, posters, reference books, and annual gala conference that BISA is able to support its national scholarship program. Other support is obtained from individual contributions and the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). We have sponsored 26 gala programs honoring 337 distinguished black women to date. In addition, we have published five major reference books and 30 calendars.

BISA is a high-energy organization that motivates, stimulates and produces results. We guarantee that our scholarship recipients will learn, work, and have fun. We currently have 50 BISA Scholars. Each scholar receives $1,000 per year for tuition, plus expenses for books, tutoring, transportation, personal and medical expenses as needed throughout their two or four years of undergraduate education. We do our best to help our scholars in any area that they express need.

BISA has had 96 college graduates and provided over $3M to inner city, financially needy young black women. Most of our scholars come from single parent households, from the poorest communities and have overcame the perils of their environment. Yet, they value education and are eager to press forward to accomplish their goals in life. Our goal is to help them succeed in their educational and career endeavors. Past BISA Scholars have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, government officials, teachers, corporate managers, and more. They do succeed and become assets to their communities.